For what it's worth, I bought the 2011 remaster of DSotM on CD and I was diappointed to find that it appeared by all accounts to be a 'remaster of a remaster', ie a remastering of the digital master from the 80s, not a re-recording from the analogue mastertape, which is what I wanted it to be. So to be honest, seeing that I already have a copy of the 80s DSotM which IMO is substandard, I felt cheated.

I'm still awaiting delivery of my antistat. Does anyone here know how good it is at removing general static/background hiss? I bought a copy of Meddle from the bay of pigs, claimed to be: Ex/Near Mint with:

"just a few seconds of very light static at the start of both sides... crystal clear audio...".

Turns out the light static extends throughout most of side 2. The audio is clear, but in the light passages of echoes the static comes through. I hope the antistat can eliminate it, otherwise I feel like complaining to this seller, who is a bit dishonest I feel.

AntiStat does work, but if the record needs cleaning as well (most s/h recrds seem to) then it will only partially elliminate the issue.

The problem lies in the relative subjectivity of people's "EX/NM" gradings. What's "excellent" to one person is FUBAR'd to another. Some people think a record is worthy of 'excellent' if the damn thing just plays without skipping, and some sellers only judge visually.

Try your local oxfam etc. At least you can inspect them and on the plus side you can take them back if goosed. Google discogs, register,then take out a second mortgage. Maybe im lucky but i have never had a bad result from discogs (kiss of death),lol.

My antistat cleaner came so thought I'd update everyone on the progress.

So I cleaned 6 records, including Meddle and DSOTM. Meddle has vastly improved, the static before was annoying, but now it's barable (and in fact you tune out of the static now). The biggest improvement after the cleaning was the fact the sound has opened up massively! More detail and clarity, but the biggest difference is that the soundstage seems huge now.

On to dstom...

I played the record through last night and I have to say that it is the best audio experience I've ever gone through. The sound stage is now MASSIVE. If you close your eyes you can image a stage that must be 30 metres wide. My whole living room is alive with Pink Floyd. The clarity is razor sharp, dynamics are very musical and overall it just sounds wonderful. The cleaning made a huge difference to the sound, which is amazingly smooth and natural.

Now for Eclipse. This time the there was no distortion, in fact I could hear everything that was going on. The vocals were clear (but with siblance, I'll come back to that in a bit) and I could hear the backing vocals. It's a really really busy track and that is very obvious now. After the record I played the CD (the SACD version, but on a normal CD player). My first impression was "Wow, where has all the sound gone???" Seriously, it was like going from a 30 metre wide stage to a 2 metre wide stage. The vinyl just sounds incredible and the CD seems to have sucked the life out of the music. I never noticed this before but it's really true. Eclipse on the CD actually sounds worse now that the vinyl. The vocals are also with siblance, and I think because the record is so much more in terms of texture, it sounds more busier. BUt it's now perfectly listenable and enjoyable.

So in conclusion: there was probably some crud on the record. The antistat really opened up the sound. In fact I couldn't believe the difference!